iPhone could soon boast indoor positioning capabilities

Posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2015 at 8:45 am.

The iPhone range is one of the many modern smartphones to offer location-based services via GPS, making it possible for users to navigate from one place to another with impressive accuracy. But as soon as you head indoors, this functionality becomes effectively useless.

However, a new app called Indoor Survey has cropped up on the App Store, boasting the ability to make use of the iPhone 6s’s internal sensors, as well as radio signals, to work out a user’s position when they are out of range of GPS satellites and behind closed doors, according to Stuff.tv.

The benefit of the Indoor Survey app when compared with existing indoor positioning technologies is that it does not require the use of additional Bluetooth beacons to work out where the device is located. Instead, it harnesses Wi-Fi coverage available in most homes and public places to make this possible, ensuring that almost anyone will be able to use it effectively.

Apple is thought to be working to improve its indoor positioning tech ahead of the release of the iPhone 7 in the autumn of 2016. And this app is the first piece of evidence that new features are on their way.